


Wolves Without Teeth

by siribear



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:30:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siribear/pseuds/siribear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of one-shots; includes characters from season one and two, in worlds their own and not. occasionally alternate universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i of the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all he has to eat are memories in a haunted diner  
> or, kenny and sarita meet-cute.

Kenny downs his second bottle of water for the day and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. His stomach rumbles, again, and it’s the only indication he gets that he’s hungry. He’s used to the stinging pain, now. It’s been two… days? since he’s eaten. And he can barely remember the last time he went that long without food.

(No, he remembers, clearly, because it was in the week before Duck was born, and he was stressed and could barely eat a thing, not in his insistence of making sure Kat had everything she needed. He must’ve raised his voice, because he clearly remembers her stuffing some strange tasting food in his mouth that he finished soon after.)

The boards across the diner windows finally block the sun as it sets, and all around him are the low drones of walkers. He should be worried, but he isn’t. The last time he cleared the area, more walkers moved in, and more after that, and then he stopped going out at all.

He lasted a week rationing what was left of his food, and here he is, two days later, toasting what’s left after he burned away the murk from water he found.

Sometimes he thinks he sees them, Katjaa and Duck. Duck spins around and around on one of the diner stools, whirling until he hops off and stumbles dizzily against the counter. Katjaa breaks off her conversation with the waitress to put her hand on Duck’s back, and then he’s back to spinning on the stool, she’s back to talking, and Kenny’s left wondering where it all went wrong.

Why couldn’t he have done _more_? Why couldn’t he save them?

He rests his head against his bunched up jacket and falls asleep to the sound of Duck’s laughter.

His hand immediately goes to his gun when he hears the sound of wood breaking. He stands, unsteady on his feet, and looks around the dark diner for the source. Looking over the counter, he sees a small handful of walkers at the front window, pounding at the boards. One lies broken in half on the table beneath the window.

He ran out of bullets a week ago, too, but his rifle is solid enough to beat a walker down. Even if his arms shake as he raises it, even if his vision swims as he walks closer, even if he barely swings in time when one of the walkers crawls through the opening and lunges at him -

A gunshot rings out, and the walker falls, dead, the other two following not long after.

He turns, or tries to, grabbing the counter for balance when he begins to tip over. A warm hand grabs his arm and lifts him upright, and -  _let the kid play a little longer, Kat_  - the woman in front of him isn’t Katjaa.

Still, she looks over him - or, up at him - and frowns. "Are you okay? You don’t look so good."

He backs up a step. "I’m - who’re you? What do you want?" He looks to the back and the door slightly open. "How’d you get in here?"

She smiles softly. "My name is Sarita. I thought this place would be safe from those things outside, so I jumped the fence. I was very surprised when I saw you in here. You almost let that one get you."

"I didn't -  _let_  it," he grumbles. No bark, no bite, a dog long since lost its teeth and a will to live.

She hums in understanding. "You look awful," she repeats, and Kenny frowns. not that he can complain - he  _feels_ awful. "I didn’t see any supplies here. Do you have any food?" He bows his head but his stomach answers for him, and she smiles again. "I see."

"You should go," he says, leaning against the counter. "It isn't safe here."

"And leave you here? Alone?" She frowns. "Absolutely not. I have food just outside. I'll go get it. Don't go anywhere."

Not that he could, even if he wanted to. Suddenly, he feels the pain in his stomach return, a sharp reminder that _yes_ , he's still here. "Sarita, right?" He catches her just before she heads through the kitchen door. She nods. "Thanks. For - " He gestures at the window. "Name’s Kenny."

Again she smiles, like she’s known him forever. "Pleasure to meet you, Kenny."


	2. Hard as Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little comic duo  
> nick & sarah go on an adventure

He knows they shouldn’t be in here, but he also knows none of the guards patrol back here. At least, Luke finally decided to let them in, even if he  _did_  say it’s their fault if they get caught.

Nick doesn’t mind taking the fall for it, anyway. Especially when he looks to his left, at Sarah crouched beside him, fingers bunched in his shirt.

"We won't get caught," he whispers. "I promised."

She nods, and her grip loosens. "You did."

Really, he pinky promised, but to Sarah it’s as good as giving her his word.

"Just around the corner here," he says under his breath. He  _knows_  he saw a door around here somewhere. There are no lights in the back yet, to help - they’re installing those next week - but Sarah  _absolutely_  wanted to go now.

And Carlos won’t be back until tonight to tell her no.

Nick trails his hand across the wall, feeling for the door. They’d probably get caught if he used his flashlight now - and this area is too close to Troy’s patrol. When his hand brushes against the handle he grabs it and pushes the door in, revealing… an even darker room.

"I can't see anything," Sarah says, squinting around him. _It should be safe, now_. He hands her one of the flashlights he stole, and she clicks it on eagerly. She barely notices him close the door behind them, so caught in her awe.

Luke had told him about it, the old comic store, but Nick’s always working on the new expansion and hasn’t had a chance to really see it. But, for being abandoned, it’s not half bad - guess people don’t really care for reading during the apocalypse. Which leaves more for him and Sarah, in the end, and the poor kid really needs something happy to cling to, instead of his shirt in the dark.

"Do you think it's here?" she asks him, still whispering, but there's the edge of breathless wonder in her voice.

He shrugs, pulling out his own flashlight, and heads toward one of the stands. "Hopefully. You brought your backpack, right? Just fill it until you can’t carry any more."

"Okay." He can hear her stepping around some of the rubble and fallen shelves, and points his flashlight at her feet to help her way. "What ones should I get?"

Nick flips through the first comic he sees, an old one he’s read at least five times. "Anything you want."

"What about you?"

"Hey, this trip isn't about me." He stuffs another comic back on the shelf. "Besides, you've got good taste. Pick something out, I'll probably like it."

They lapse into silence save for the sound of Sarah carefully placing comics in her backpack. Through the walls, he thinks he hears Luke talking to Troy, but no cause for alarm, just yet.

That is, until he hears Sarah’s high-pitched yelp.

In an instant, he’s at her side as she crouches over something. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"

He almost falls backward when Sarah suddenly shoves a comic right in his face. "I found it! The part we were talking about, see? Right here." She flips through the pages, and he takes a seat next to her. "It’s us!"

"Us" is a panel with the two main characters, a brother-sister duo, with one who  _really_  does look like Sarah (so, maybe his memory isn’t as good as he thought, and now he owes her half of his dessert), and the other wearing a hat, but with his hair pulled into a pony tail.

"If you wore your hair like that, you'd look  _just_  like him," she says, and the way she looks at him makes him think he’s not going to be able to  _avoid_  wearing his hair like that.

"When my hair gets longer, then," he says. She smiles and puts the comic in her backpack, along with a large stack of others. He shoulders it for her when she has trouble lifting it up, and when Luke pops his head in the door, they sneak their way back to the yard.

Even though his hair isn’t long enough yet, Sarah insists on attempting to style it anyway. When Carlos returns to the yard, he walks over to Nick and Sarah in the corner, a large spread of comic books around them. He looks ready to ask them about it, but when Nick looks up he sees Carlos look from him to Sarah - with the biggest smile on her face - and back.

Carlos gives him a nod and a thankful smile, and leaves them to it.


	3. Far From Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone thinks doctors are important in the apocalypse, but where are all the barbers  
> nick and clem family outing (and luke is there too, i guess)

When she goes to sleep is the only time Nick notices Clementine take off her hat. And even then, she keeps it close, tucked against her chest as she tosses and turns at night.

Not that he can judge, really, considering he barely ever takes his own hat off, but it’s more out of habit than any sentimentality. Luke teases him about it, saying if he keeps it on he’s going to have a terrible case of hat hair. Pete tells him that he already  _has_  it, that’s why he keeps it on so much.

Nick hates them both.

But the first thing Clementine does in the morning is put on her hat and her game face, and hardly ever does he see her go without either. It’s easy to forget because of it, but… she’s still so young.

He’s cautious around her, still. Not because he doesn’t trust her but because he  _did_  almost shoot her in the face and he doesn’t want to make her feel worse toward him. Now, he’s grateful he didn’t hit her, and he  _did_ apologize, but it doesn’t take the guilt away.

Especially not when he hears her whimper in her sleep, sometimes.

At Clementine’s insistence (and Nick makes sure to back her up on it), he and Luke go with her to search for her friends in the morning. They take most of the day searching the area across the river and as far away as Luke will allow them. Neither of them really want to run into Carver while they’re out, or accidentally lead him back to the cabin.

But they do end up staying out too late, and they’re forced to make camp in the clearing Clementine and her friends stayed before they were ambushed. In retrospect, a pretty shitty idea - Luke’s.

This time, they both see her toss and turn, and maybe it’s the memory she has of the spot, but it seems worse tonight. Nick keeps watch first, and eventually passes it to Luke halfway through the night.

Nick wakes to clementine panicking.

"What is it?" he mumbles, still half-asleep.

"My hat!" she practically shouts. "I had it.. last night. But now it's not here."

Nick can see Luke already searching around the area, probably feeling guilty since it disappeared on his watch. He quickly gets up and begins searching, occasionally glancing at Clementine as she does the same. The only time he’s seen her this panicked is the moment right before he accidentally almost shot her.

He wanders away from camp and, thankfully, finds it relatively close. The wind must have blown it away, and a tree stopped it from rolling any further. He brings it back to her, and she takes it from him with a grateful smile. With her hat safely back on her head, he can’t help but smile back at her.

"You're kind of attached to that thing, huh?" he asks on their way back to the cabin.

She pulls the bill slightly down over her eyes. "My dad gave it to me. It’s.. all I have left." He and Luke share a low hiss and sympathetic looks over her head. "What about your hat?"

"Well.. shit, mine's not that special. Uncle Pete bought it for my birthday."

She smiles up at him, but even to him it looks forced. "That’s still nice."

"He thought I was a loser for wanting it, but he got it anyway. So… yeah, I guess." He shrugs. "By the way - " Clementine looks up at him again as they stop right in front of the cabin " - you should probably take care of that hat hair."

Clementine frowns. "Yours is pretty bad, too."

He adjusts his hat and ignores the sound of Luke's laughter.


End file.
